Heating & Cooling Systems, Etc

Jules

Jules

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What do you have in your house?

We have a forced air Gas furnace. Our central AC is run through the same system. Our water heater is natural gas.

Some family & friends have heat pumps. The cooling part of their system isn’t quite as efficient.

Some apartments/condos have a ‘central’ system where you have a unit by each window. I haven’t heard anything good about this system. Maybe it’s the norm. My friend was on the opposite side of where the thermostats were - on the southern exposure. If that side heated up through large glass windows in the winter, her heat went down. Sometimes she froze in the summer because of their over cooling. She sold.
 

Us, too, Jules, forced air natural gas furnace, central air system tied into the same furnace system, and a natural gas hot water tank.

With separate units at each window I would think it would be a lot more noisy, and then there would be the fussing around one would have to do to tailor each room to a comfortable setting.

I would think having separate units would be more costly also.
 
We have a 4.5 (54,000 BTU) Ton Heating/Cooling system for the whole house, but we also have a 28,000 BTU Mitsubishi "Split System Heat/Air" unit for our sunroom, and an 10,000 BTU window unit for my upstairs office. Yes, it can get hot here.
 

The best HVAC I never had was when I lived on the Big Island. No furnace or A/C - just open and close the sliding doors. One was on the East/Ocean side of the house, and there was always a breeze blowing. The other was on the opposite side. The warmest it every got while I was there was about 88F (both doors open), and the coolest was about 65F at night (both doors closed).

Hot water heater was propane
 
Electric baseboard heat. I like it since there are no moving parts to eventually need service. One big AC in the kitchen which will cool most of the house and dehumidifies. I only use it a few times a year.
 
We have ducted air (rarely used because it costs more to run) and a Mitsubishi Bronte Heavy Industry split system (7kw cool and 8kw heat) for the lounge/dining areas which is going flat out at the moment pumping out warm air because it was 3C here at 7am this morning. :) We have 12 solar panels on the roof.
 
A heat / cooling pump - absorbs energy from the ground for both heat and central air
Electric baseboards which we don’t use
Wood stove with a never ending supply of good hardwood
Plus an air exchanger which circulates the air including taking water out - dehumidifier or adding water - humidifier

Note.: the cooling system of our heat pump is very efficient which we couldn’t be happier with. We’ve never had central air before.
 
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Our place is totally electric....furnace, central AC, appliances, etc. Luckily, we are a member of a rural electric co-op, and our rates are quite low. The Co-op also bundles our phone, TV, and internet, and the monthly bill for everything is quite reasonable.
 
Oil/hot water baseboard heating & central air conditioning. I grew up with a natural gas/forced air system and really liked it. We had heat, a/c , humidifier, and dust percipitator all using the same ducting. What's not to love.

Then for 25 years we had all electric. The upside was that there was a thermostat in every room so temperature control was nearly perfect. The downsides were no humidity or dust control and very little air exchange within the house.

Oil/hot water baseboard is the worst of both, but it seems to be about the only type of system New England knows. :rolleyes:
 
All the apartments here are all electric with electric baseboard heat. I have a window air conditioner that I bought when I moved in here. I am comfortable.
 
Our home we've been in the past 21 years is all electric. We heat/cool with a heat pump. When temps drop below 35 degrees F, the heat pump shuts down and resistance electric heat takes over. It's been very cost effective.
Just replaced the entire system about 3 years ago. The old unit had been here longer than we had and was beginning to give trouble. The new system is more efficient.
Our water heater... electric... is getting close to 20 years old. Unheard of! So, we know one of these days it will need replaced.
(I must compliment @Jules for his "water heater" in the original post. It makes my teeth hurt when people say "hot water heater"! If the water was hot, you wouldn't need to heat it!!! You are actually heating water that has lost some of it's heat energy and needs reheated. A better name would be water reheater than hot water heater!!) :rolleyes: :rolleyes: 😁😁
 
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